Vine

How to spell vine

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce vine

What does vine mean?

1. nounA plant with a long, trailing or climbing stem, especially one that bears grapes.

Vine in a sentence

• A thick vine had wrapped itself around the garden trellis.

• Each grape vine in the valley produced a heavy crop that autumn.

Where does vine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word vine traces back to the Latin vinea, meaning 'vineyard' or 'a row of grapevines', which was itself built on vinum, the ordinary Latin word for 'wine'. English took it during the 1200s through Old French vigne, which named the climbing plant whose fruit was pressed into wine. The original link to wine explains why the earliest English vines were specifically grape-bearing plants, only later broadening to cover any long, trailing or climbing stem such as ivy or a pumpkin runner. The same vinum root sits inside vineyard, vintage, and vinegar (literally 'sour wine'), so the silent connection to wine is everywhere once you notice it. The spelling stayed simple and short, with the long 'i' sound coming from the single vowel followed by a final silent 'e'.

How the word is built

• vin- (from Latin vinum: wine)
• -e